The Art of Deadheading

The rose’s beauty belies its hardy ability to live through zone 2 winters. The emerging yellow buds fringed in pink open fully to fiery coral. Throughout the summer and into the early fall, the rose bush brightens my garden with tri-colored flowers. A stone rabbit stands guard while I carefully prune the spent flowers back to a five-leaflet leaf.   With every snip Abby watches from beneath nearby tomato plants. I move to the purple and pink petunias cascading from baskets and flowerpots and cut the stems directly above the next pair of leaves. Mums and marigolds love being pinched. No need to use shears, just a quick twist with my index finger and thumb removes spent flowers.

Deadheading promotes luscious blooms and luxurious daydreams. There is a certain repetitive Zen quality to removing spent flowers without chanting Ommmm. Time flies. My imagination soars in the quiet of the day. And what better way to spend a soft summer day.

There is yet another way that I spend countless hours blissfully unaware of the day’s events and that’s filling pages with my rendering of wild flowers.   Spring is announced with the lavender-blue petals of the Round-lobbed Hepatica. Each May, I gently brush away the brown grass to uncover the first wildflower blooming at the base of a red oak tree. This flower is too rare to pick, so I sit on the ground with my sketchpad and colored pencils attempting to draw the delicate pedals. Wild Prairie roses fill the roadsides with pale pink fragrant flowers and without fail bloom in time to celebrate my son’s birthday. Every June 12 I fill a vase or two with sprigs of pink roses.

My sketch pad eventually became a sketch diary filled with drawings of wildflowers and notations such as “Beautiful spring night—full moon”; “The night sky is now layers of dark blue, pinkish gold and the lake reflects the sky”; “Ran 3 miles, coffee at Uptown Cafe and lunch at the Country Club.”

I no longer have my northern Minnesota garden, but I still pass pleasant mornings snipping spent flowers from the enormous Mum plant (a Costco $9.99 bargain) and Abby still watches but from the cool pavers beneath the front window.